BLAIRE SULLIVAN WAS not afraid of heights, she wasn't afraid of robotic mammals who somehow wielded the ability to fly, nor was she afraid of the trio of strange teenagers she'd been lumped on this stupid quest with. However, she was quite afraid of her current predicament. Not the fact she was surely flying into impending doom, (although that factor did subconsciously stir up a funnel of dread within her), but the fact that she was pressed nearly flush against Leo Valdez, the odd son of Hephaestus who hallucinated old ladies and talked at lightning speed.

  Blaire sat directly behind Leo, her joints stiff as to keep herself rooted in place and as far away from Leo as she could get on the scarce space of the dragon's hide. Every now and then she would unconsciously lean away from Leo and the strange aroma of...tobasco sauce...(?) that surrounded him. When she did that though, she was scarily close to Piper, the newfound daughter of Aphrodite. So really, Blaire, being completely opposed to physical touch and proximity, just could not win.

    As the quartet flew over the cloudy Connecticut sky, soaring over snowy rooftops, Blaire contemplated throwing herself from the dragon and saving herself the trouble of spending a dozen more hours sandwiched between Piper and Leo.

  "Cool, right?" Leo grinned back at his friends and Blaire, accidentally leaning further into the aforementioned daughter of Hecate as he did so.

Leo, somehow, emmited a bout of warmth that felt entirely misplaced at such a high longitude, the chill of the December winds had absolutey nothing on the boy. And they had nothing on Blaire either for she was sitting so close to the boy, his artificial heat warmed her too. It seeped through the folds of her thick winter coat and graced her bear frozen joints. She hated it.

  Blaire dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand, leaving crescent-like indents on the flesh. She shot Leo a steely warning glare, advising him to stray further away from her, catching a glimpse of his proud smile as she did so.

  Leo was odd, and not only because of the previously listed reasons concerning his hyperactive speaking pace and his tendency to hallucinate elderly women but for reasons rooted much deeper than that. For example;  Leo seemed to hold an infinite amount of enthusiasm and joy within his scrawny frame. He managed to plaster on an almost maniac smile while flying towards mythological beings who had a personal vendetta against him.

Though his life was quite literally unfurling at the seams, he seemed elated to be alive and able to fly on Festus despite the circumstances.

   And when he smiled, all of his teeth were on display. The emote lit up his entire face, coloring it with a type of joy Blaire had never even imagined experiencing. Even his eyes seemed to glow with an obscene amount of grattitude and mental wealth.

  He was weird.

  "What if we get spotted?" Piper asked wearily from behind Blaire.

  "The mist," Jason cut in. "It keeps mortals from seeing magic things. If they spot us they'll probably mistake us for a small plane or something."

  Piper looked back at Jason, "You sure about that?"

  "No," Jason said, and then the two shared an odd sort of silence brimming with akward electricity.

   "We're making good time," Jason told the crew, apparently fed up with the silence. "Probably be there by tonight."

  "Where are we heading?" Piper sucked in a breath.

  Blaire didn't have to be a daughter of Aphrodite to sense the obvious tension.

  "To find the God of the north wind. And chase some storm spirits."

     Thinking about your dead best friend with a negative and near deadly mindset while flying a hundred feet in the air was probably not a good idea. Blaire was very aware that it was incredibly possible to jump from the dragon, and the mere thought of it was almost too tempting. It'd save her from this stupid quest and the stupid phrophecy and the stupid terrors of being a demigod.

   Blaire's dismal internal track was cut off by Leo who spoke aloud. "Shut up, me."

Blaire reered backwards, staring at the boys curls in confusion as if somehow his hair would offer up a response as to why he was speaking nonsense into thin air.

"What?" Piper asked, and Blaire silently agreed.

"Nothing," Leo shook his head, turning to face the group once again, embarassment clear on his features. "Long night I think I'm hallucinating. It's cool."

It absolutely wasn't cool that the one controlling the dragon they flew on was hallucinating. And Blaire didn't hesitate to tell him that.

"What do you mean you think you're hallucinating?" The Sullivan girl furrowed her eyebrows angrily, wincing as the boy leaned closer to her, and his curls, which smelled oddly hygienic— like mint shampoo and some sort of chemical product, brushed against her nose. "And it's not cool. You're gonna crash and kill us all."

Not that she cared too much. She just liked complaining.

"Sorry," Leo blushed so red, he resembled the ancient sneakers tied over Blaire's feet. "I'm just messing around."

"It's not very funny," She mumbled incoherently, staring out at the clouds.

"So what's the plan, bro? You said something about catching wind, or breaking wind, or something?" Leo tried, obviously trying to change the subject as to avoid any further embarrassment.

Plan: First, find some guy named Boreas and grill him for information—

"His name is Boreas?" Leo had to ask. "What is he, the God of Boring?"

Blaire immediately found she was easily annoyed at his incapability to take anything seriously.

Second, Jason continued, they had to find those venti that had attacked three of the four quest-goers at the grand canyon.

"Can we just call them storm spirits?" Leo asked. "Venti makes them sound like evil espresso drinks."

Blaire buried her face in her hands, tempted to pat Leo down in search for his off button.

And third, Jason finished, they had to find out who the storm spirits worked for, so they could find Hera and free her.

"So you want to look for Dylan, the nasty storm dude, on purpose," Leo said. "The guy who threw me off the skywalk and sucked Coach Hedge into the clouds."

To Blaire, that was all new information. She didn't know that Leo had been thrown from the grand canyon. And she sort of wished she'd been there to see it. It would've been enthralling— watching Leo do something other than joke around like an attention starved toddler.

"That's about it," Jason said. "Well ... there may be a wolf involved, too. But I think she's friendly. She probably won't eat us, unless we show weakness."

Essentially, Blaire thought. Of course not.

Jason told them about his dream—the big nasty mother wolf and a burned-out house with stone spires growing out of the swimming pool.

"Uh-huh," Leo said. "But you don't know where this place is."

   "Nope," Jason admitted.

    "There's also giants," Piper added. "The prophecy said the giants'revenge."

  "Hold on," Leo said. "Giants—like more than one? Why can't it be just one giant who wants revenge?"

  "I don't think so," Piper said. "I remember in some of the old Greek stories, there was something about an army of giants."

  Blaire was not intrested enough in the conversation to chime in. She knew the phrophecy was important, but she didn't care a great amount about any of it other than the words concerning herself. Call her self absorbed all you want, but she didn't have the trauma-free brain capacity to worry about people she didn't know existed befor yesterday.

   "Great," Leo muttered. "Of course, with our luck, it's an army. So you know anything else about these giants? Didn't you do a bunch of myth research for that movie with your dad?"

  "Your dad's an actor?" Jason asked.

Leo laughed. "I keep forgetting about your amnesia. Heh. Forgetting about amnesia. That's funny. But yeah, her dad's Tristan McLean."

"Are we supposed to know who that is?" Blaire interrogated.

"Uh—Sorry, what was he in?" Jason said.

"It doesn't matter," Piper said quickly. "The giants—well there were lots of giants in Greek mythology. But if I'm thinking of the right ones, they were bad news. Huge, almost impossible to kill. They could throw mountains and stuff. I think they were related to the Titans. They rose from the earth after Kronos lost the war—I mean the first Titan war, thousands of years ago—and they tried to destroy Olympus. If we're talking about the same giants—"

"Chiron said it was happening again," Jason remembered. "The last chapter. That's what he meant. No wonder he didn't want us to know all the details."

Leo whistled. "So ... giants who can throw mountains. Friendly wolves that will eat us if we show weakness. Evil espresso drinks. Gotcha. Maybe this isn't the time to bring up my psycho babysitter."

Blaire rolled her eyes. "Gods, stop with the jokes."

But he wasn't joking.

He went on to tell them about his babysitter, who was really Hera in disguise as a mortal caretaker. and how she'd appeared to him at camp. Which made sense to Blaire, considering he did point out an elder woman who wasn't visible to the general population while she was showing him around Camp.

Leo told them about his mom's death, how a machine shop collapsed in on her. It was obvious the subject was incredibly sore for him, considering he wouldn't look at the other demigods while he spoke.

Blaire, careless, hardly attentive Blaire, noticed he seemed to be darting frantic around certian parts of the story. As if he were holding something back. Not that she cared much.

And he told them about the strange woman in earthen robes who seemed to be asleep, and seemed to know the future.

The whole state of Massachusetts passed below them before anyone spoke up.

"That's ... disturbing," Piper said.

"'Bout sums it up," Leo agreed. "Thing is, everybody says don't trust Hera. She hates demigods. And the prophecy said we'd cause death if we unleash her rage. And Blaire would suffer some curse. So I'm wondering ... why are we doing this?"

Suffer some curse. Some curse that tarnished her youth.

"She chose us," Jason said. "All four of us. We're the first of the eight who have to gather for the Great Prophecy. This quest is the beginning of something much bigger."

Sunny had said the same thing to Blaire in her dream the night before. Which means Jason must have been correct. Blaire trusted the sun of Apollo more than anything. He was wise, wise past reasonable earthly limits.

"Besides," Jason continued, "helping Hera is the only way I can get back my memory. And that dark spire in my dream seemed to be feeding on Hera's energy. If that thing unleashes a king of the giants by destroying Hera—"

"Not a good trade-off," Piper agreed. "At least Hera is on our side—mostly. Losing her would throw the gods into chaos. She's the main one who keeps peace in the family. And a war with the giants could be even more destructive than the Titan War."

The mention of the Titan war, although miniscule and hardly evident within Pipers words, caused Blaire to suck in a great breathe of icy air. If the upcoming war was more destructive than the titan war, it was hard telling what she might lose. She'd already lost both of her bestfriends.

Jason nodded. "Chiron also talked about worse forces stirring on the solstice, with it being a good time for dark magic, and all—something that could awaken if Hera were sacrificed on that day. And this mistress who's controlling the storm spirits, the one who wants to kill all the demigods—"

"Might be that weird sleeping lady," Leo finished. "Dirt Woman fully awake? Not something I want to see."

"But who is she?" Jason asked. "And what does she have to do with giants?"

All good questions, but none of them had anwsers.

Blaire wasn't bothered by Hera's current predicament. She didn't care that the godess was stuck in a cage. And in all honesty, if it were up to her, she'd leave Hera to rot. Especially if rescuing her would unleash some sort of godly rage.

She didn't want a redo of the past. She didn't want another war. And she didn't want to go on a stupid quest with people she didn't even know. But, as The Oracle and Sunny told her, she was merely a pawn in a much larger, more significant game. In the grand scheme of it all, Blaire Sullivan, a spiteful, hardly powerful teenaged girl, meant nothing.

Blaire would suffer the curse which tarnished her youth on this quest. All because a bitchy godess found herself trapped. She would ruin what Blaire had left of a life for her own good. But it wasn't suprising, not really.

The olympians were selfish. They didn't care about anyone but themselves.

An already traumatized girl would face much more because eternally lasting beings were too cowardice to fight their own battles. A phrophized girl with ancient titan's blood coursing through her mortal veins would suffer through the burdens of both mental and physical warfare because of pure parental haughtiness.

Festus kept flying. The wind got colder, and below them snowy forests seemed to go on forever. The group didn't know exactly where Quebec was. Leo har told Festus to take them to the palace of Boreas, and Festus kept going north. Hopefully, the dragon knew the way, and they wouldn't end up at the North Pole.

"Why don't you get some sleep, Leo?" Piper said aloud. "You were up all night."

"You won't let me fall off?"

Piper patted his shoulder. "Trust me, Valdez. Beautiful people never lie."

Leo hardly had the time to murmur, "Right." Before he was out like a light.

AUTHOR: helloooo, long time NO SEE! I dedicate this horrible ungodly ass chapter to LANASLCVER because she won't leave me tf alone abt updating this... anyways I grinded so hard on this short ass chapter rn. and yesterday i was getting my nails done and I suddenly had the urge to chose to get purple nails for blaire so I guess they are like a tribute to her?!?? I hope u enjoy this terrible chapter full of Blaire just like judging the lost trio in her head 😭 ily and don't be a ghost reader even tho this is a filler.